Planehook Aviation Services has launched the premier edition of “General Aviation Security,” a quarterly digest-size magazine. The magazine is available via download (free) or printed ($5 – email request). Story titles include: “Can You Eat a Whole Cow? Sure… one bite at a time!”, “Risk as Dollars and Cents,” and “Got Security?” The publication has 22 stories in total and is the work of Planehook President David Hook. David has written on GA security for General Aviation News.

Jamie Beckett is a CFI and A&P mechanic who stepped into the political arena in an effort to promote and protect GA at his local airport.

The conversation turned to the TSA at my morning coffee gathering today. Pretty much everyone at the table flies for business or pleasure, at least occasionally. So it is no wonder that scattered amongst the chatter about local, state, and federal government shenanigans, the recently implemented grope-fest going on at airports all across the United States should come up.

Opinions differed as to how each person felt about the latest security measures. Eventually the focus shifted to me, the pilot in the group. Which caused me to admit publicly what I seldom speak of. The truth is this: I don’t fly commercial. Not ever. Not for any reason. I just don’t. [Read more…]

Jamie Beckett is a CFI and A&P mechanic who stepped into the political arena in an effort to promote and protect GA at his local airport. You can reach him at Jamie@GeneralAviationNews.com.

The suggestion that aviation has changed over the past several decades will surprise no one. It obviously has. However, the disparity between the positive change, and the debatable change, is worthy of public discussion. So why not get the ball rolling here? [Read more…]

Like so many GA airports, mine faced a problem that was brought into sharp focus by the recent capture in Santa Barbara of those two wily desperados, John and Martha King. If nothing else the incident made it clear that emergency response workers (including police, fire and EMT crews) do not necessarily have a clear view of how aviation works on a day-to-day basis. Certainly the differences between VFR and IFR operations were not well understood on the law enforcement side of the equation.

The news is bad. When two of the nicest, friendliest, most competent people on the planet (and yes, I speak of John and Martha King) find themselves victimized by law enforcement based on sloppy investigative practices, you have no choice but to ask, “Who is safe from this sort of short-sighted, narrow-minded, over-zealous security that has so obviously run amok?” Sadly, the obvious answer is, nobody. But that’s not the burning question at this point. The real issue is, what are you gonna do about it?